


Mutually Assured Destruction

by matchasweettea



Series: Weapons of Mass Destruction [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Hawkmoth, Identity Reveal, Lila Rossi Lies, Mild Adrien salt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchasweettea/pseuds/matchasweettea
Summary: Marinette has had a hard couple months getting her life back on track after the events of Miracle Queen. Although her friends don’t hang out with her much anymore she’s doing great working on her grades, finding Hawkmoth, and her various projects. One of those projects is bringing down Lila Rossi. But picking the wrong alley to transform threatens  to throw her life back off track.
Series: Weapons of Mass Destruction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781593
Comments: 27
Kudos: 162





	Mutually Assured Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in almost four years please be kind. It was betad by the wonderful BornOfFlame

The day Marinette finally snapped started just like any other had ever been since she took Adrien’s advice about taking the high road when it came to Lila. She walked into class, smiled politely whenever Lila said something about some celebrity she definitely didn’t know and sat in the back of the classroom without complaint. It hadn’t been long after the events of Miracle Queen when Lila had come up with a new lie to get herself in the front row with Adrien and Marinette sent to the back. If Marinette hadn’t been emotionally and physically exhausted by her crash course in Guardianship that the kwamis had been giving her every night after she patrolled, she  _ might _ have put up more of a protest, but instead, she had just slowly climbed the stairs to the back row and used the opportunity to catch up on her sleep unnoticed. Her exhaustion was mostly the reason she had taken Adrien’s advice in the first place.

  
  


The first day Marinette started ignoring Lila had been the day after the events of Miracle Queen and her first lesson as the new Guardian. Lila was pissed when she tried to get Marinette riled up later that day but Marinette just shrugged and said ‘sure, whatever you say, Lila,’ before yawning widely and going back to resting her head on her desk. Due to Marinette’s non-confrontational behavior, all of Lila’s plans to actively turn the class against her had flopped, succeeding only in distancing Marinette from the rest of the class and getting her moved back to the back for some new made-up reason that Marinette had missed. She was so quiet and unassuming for the first month after Miracle Queen that her class almost forgot she was still there and had stopped asking her for favors that took up all her free time. 

  
  


When Marinette had come out of the fog she’d been in since she lost Master Fu, and had the weight of Paris dropped fully onto her shoulders, she’d been surprised how little she cared that her friends had seemingly forgotten about her. At least Lila hadn’t managed to make them hate her. Although her friends had stopped actively wanting to hang out with her, she decided she would still keep her friends from getting hurt by Lila’s lies. Thankfully, they still thought her advice was valuable. Whenever Lila would tell them not to bother entering this contest or applying for that internship because she knew someone famous in the industry in question and she’d put in a good word for them, Marinette would find them later and convince them that it would look good on their resume or in their portfolio to have accomplishments that they can show Lila’s contact to impress them beyond Lila’s good word. The line that usually convinced them was; Sure Lila can open the door but you need to have something impressive to show that will keep that door open.

  
  


With her new free time, Marinette had taken to studying, working on commissions, and learning more about being an effective Guardian. As a result, her grades had risen and she started showing up to class on time after scheduling her time better now that she wasn’t running around, going along with one of Alya’s hare-brained schemes to get her and Adrien together. She had also become more powerful as Ladybug, learning new abilities, and gaining more time before detransformation. The Kwamis had also deemed it necessary for her to know Adrien was Chat Noir as she needed to be able to take the miraculous back if it ever came to that or when they finally defeated Hawk Moth. As a result, her feelings for Adrien faded when she learned the boy she was crushing on had been hounding her for dates and kisses like a ‘nice guy’ she’d read about after running across the term on the internet one night. Because of this, she was able to see his actions as a civilian in a new light. She stopped taking his advice.

  
  


Although Adrien believed Marinette had stopped opposing Lila, she was lying low and gathering evidence to contradict Lila’s lies, waiting for the perfect opportunity to expose her. One day during an attempt to chase down an Akuma before anyone was Akumatized, Marinette had stumbled upon the sadly unsurprising fact that Lila was working with Hawkmoth to create more powerful negative emotions for equally more powerful Akuma. She had temporarily lost sight of the butterfly when she finally spotted it dipping down into an alley. When she dropped onto the roof above it, she saw Lila speaking to the butterfly before offering it her supposed family heirloom to possess. When the spotted heroine realized Lila had been speaking to the instrument of Hawkmoth’s control, she’d pulled out her yo-yo and filmed the seemingly not one-sided conversation the brunette had before the familiar purple outline of a butterfly even appeared. After that, Marinette added gathering evidence of her criminal activity as well.

  
  


That’s why when Marinette heard a familiar voice coming from the entrance to the alley she had run into to transform to fight the newest Akuma made from Hawkmoth and Lila’s combined efforts, she felt ice-cold dread creep down her spine. Gritting her teeth, Marinette turned to face Lila, seeing all her best-laid plans to get the lying Italian kicked out of the country for working with a terrorist. 

“Lila, how wonderful to see you again,” she said in greeting, silently hoping Lila had been too late to see her secret identity, “I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got an Akuma to go fight,” her voice dripped with false pleasantries. Lila laughed and dashed Marinette's hopes to dust. 

“This is just perfect! My two worst enemies are one person! Oh, this is going to make destroying you that much sweeter Mari- _ bug, _ ” she emphasized the word like an insult and cackled, meanwhile Marinette was trying to think of a way out of this disastrous situation.

Marinette held up her hands in front of her, palms facing outward, as if she was trying to stop a dangerous animal from mauling her, “Now Lila, let's not be hasty. We can work this out just between us, no need to tell anybody.”

Lila scoffed, “are you kidding me? I’m telling everybody! Then Hawkmoth will do the dirty work for me and crush you like the little  _ bug  _ you are.”

Marinette dropped the defensive stance and crossed her arms across her chest, “Fine, if you wanna play it like this then let’s do it,” Marinette glared at Lila, “if  _ you _ tell anybody I’m Ladybug  _ I’ll _ tell the police you’ve been working for Hawkmoth.”

Lila’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sniffed and fake cried even though she knew Marinette always saw through her act, “I’m just another poor victim of his evil machinations.”

If Marinette wasn’t focused on her seemingly dire situation she would have been impressed by the large word Lila used.

“Just wait until I tell everyone that their beloved  _ Ladybug _ thinks they’re willingly working with Hawkmoth,” Lila continued to crow, thinking Marinette had nothing left up her sleeve.

“Oh no Lila,” Marinette smirked, unlatching her yoyo from her hip and opening it, “the way an Akuma victim works with Hawkmoth is much more different compared to how you work with him,” she pulled up a video she’d found on the school’s cameras where Lila chased down and caught an Akuma.

She showed the screen to Lila and continued, “Akumatizing yourself isn’t what makes someone a poor victim of, how did you put it? Oh yes Hawkmoth’s evil machinations,” Marinette sneered. 

Lila glared back, “uh-uh that proves nothing! I was just really mad! It was the heat of the moment and I regretted my actions later!” She spoke quickly, trying to cover her misdeeds, “no cop will believe you on one video, even if you are Paris’ savior.”

“Oh really?” Marinette swiped at the screen, pulling up the video where Lila held an Akuma in her hands and talked to it, “do you think they’ll believe this?” She hit play.

Rising from the magically powerful speakers of Ladybug’s yo-yo, was Lila’s voice saying, “look I know the plan didn’t work this time but I’ll get that annoyingly upbeat Marinette don’t you worry,” Lila paled, “now Akumatize me. No use wasting a perfectly good Akuma.”

Lila yanked the yo-yo out of Ladybug’s hands, “how did you get this video?!” she tapped at the screen frantically, trying to delete the incriminating evidence against her, “how do you work this stupid thing?!!”

Ladybug snatched the yo-yo out of Lila’s hands, “it doesn’t work for anyone but me. So there’s no deleting this video, or any of the others that I’ve filmed ever since I found you speaking to that Akuma in the alley,” she snarled at the liar. Lila shrunk back, having never heard the superheroine use that kind of tone before.

“What do you want from me, Marinette,” Lila replied sullenly, finally giving up her feigned innocence.

Marinette relaxed for the first time since she’d heard Lila’s god awful laugh coming from behind her, “that’s more like it,” she reattached the yo-yo to her hip and recrossed her arms, “now as much as it pains me to say it, I won’t show these videos to the police,” she paused and Lila let out a sigh of relief and she opened her mouth to say something.

“If!” Marinette cut her off before she could speak, “and only if, you can keep your mouth shut. I don’t trust you. If I hear even an inkling that Marinette Dupain-Cheng is Ladybug I’ll hand over a flash drive to the police. Doesn’t matter if you squealed or not,” she paused and then snorted, remembering their history lesson from earlier that day, “I believe this is what Miss Bustier would call a M.A.D. situation.”

“What?” Lila hadn’t been paying attention again in class.

“Mutually Assured Destruction,” Marinette replies before leaving Lila in the alley, intent on getting to the Akuma attack she’d been caught transforming for in the first place. She hoped that Chat hadn’t done anything stupid in her absence and that Lila was the only idiot she had to deal with for the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> Might continue this depending on feedback. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I love Lila Rossi with all my heart she’s an interesting character and I love her evil little eyes. A+ character design if you ask me. They hold so much malice. If I continue this fic it will contain Lila being dragged kicking and screaming to redemption.


End file.
